Introducing Interactive Fiction

It's been more than two decades since Will Crowther and Don Woods
wrote Colossal Cave, the first computer adventure
game. Things have gotten complicated since then, what with the
proliferation of web sites and the growing number of people using
computers.

This article is a brief overview of the specific brand of
interactive fiction covered by this site, namely, computer adventure
games. If you're new to the adventure game scene or want a review of
what resources are available for the adventure game player, then read
on.

Interactive fiction (IF) is a broad term. Strictly speaking,
interactive fiction is anything in which you influence the outcome of
a story, like continuous stories you can add to or those old "Choose
Your Own Adventure" books with their branching stories. But there is a
more specialized meaning of interactive fiction which I use on this
site: computer adventure games.

In general, computer adventure games are computer programs which
tell you a story. In them you play a character in the story, and you
move the story along through your actions. In many pieces of IF you
have to solve puzzles to keep the story going, puzzles like "How do I
open the locked door?" or "How can I get the bridle off the alpaca so
I can return it to Barry?" In some games you also have to interact
with non-player characters (NPCs) to keep the plot unfolding.

Because IF involves storytelling and puzzle-solving, it tends to
emphasize thought over action, a boon for people who like to play
computer games but don't like reflex-dependent ones like
Quake. If you do like a little action with your thinking,
try hybrid games like Tomb Raider, where puzzle solving
is blended with jumping and shooting.

IF comes in two flavors: graphic and text. Text adventures came
first. Playing them is like reading a book in which you have to type
commands to tell the protagonist what to do. Famous text adventures
include Zork and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy, which is based on the book by Douglas Adams. Graphic
adventures tell their stories through pictures rather than words. You
may be familiar with graphic adventures like Myst, in
which you view the world through your character's eyes, or
Monkey Island, in which you move your character around
on-screen.

If you want to play a graphic adventure, you'll most likely have to
pay for it. Most graphic adventures are sold by companies like
LucasArts and Cyan, so you'll have to order them from the companies or
visit your local software store. Text adventures, on the other hand,
tend to be free. If you're looking for a text adventure, chances are
you'll find it on the Interactive
Fiction Archive. The IF Archive is the world-wide repository for
text adventures, and should be the first place you look for new
ones. (If you're new to the IF Archive, you'd best read through this guide before
going there.)

Regardless of whether you want to play graphic or text IF, you
should be sure to see what reviewers have to
say about the game you've picked. Many commercial game sites review
graphic adventures, while the main site for text adventure reviews is
Baf's Guide to the Interactive
Fiction Archive.

If you play IF, sooner or later you're going to get stuck on a
puzzle you can't solve. When that happens, there are places you can go for help. Most adventure
game sites provide walkthroughs, which are series of step-by-step
instructions explicitly leading you through games.

However, your best resource for help is other people who have
already played the game you're playing. You can talk to other fans of
IF on bulletin boards or on Usenet newsgroups. If you're
unfamiliar with newsgroups, you can learn more about them at Google Groups, which gives you
access to Usenet through the web.

There's a lot more out there than what I've talked about here, some
of it listed on this site. Don't be afraid to go exploring. After all,
playing IF can be entertaining and educational; sometimes, it even
aspires to be art.